Parmesan Cheese

I have never understood why people like Parmesan cheese - it smells like vomit! I mean seriously, it smells like vomit, so how can that be tasty?

The chemical basis for this is butyric acid. Wikipedia on butyric acid: "It is found in rancid butter, parmesan cheese, vomit, and body odor." See, I told you so. And no, I didn't edit the article.

Back in 1968, I had a summer job as a, ahem, Cobol programmer at Standard Oil in downtown Chicago. The Democratic National Convention was just a few blocks away up Michigan Avenue. At lunch hour, we would walk around checking the scene out. All the public indoor places reeked as if from vomit. No one ever commented on this in the news reports, but much later there was an article that said two girls went around every day dropping tissues laced with butyric acid in trash bins and ashtrays. Nowadays, of course, neither trash bins (for fear of bombs) nor ash trays (for fear of ciggies) would be allowed.

Convention Madness

I think a key thing has been overlooked in all the hoopla about Vice Presidential picks, which have little impact on the election (although they may be a godsend to late night comedians). And that key thing is that neither President Bush nor Vice President Cheney attended the RNC (Bush did do a video thing).

A lot of people voted for GWB in 2004. And nobody likes to be told they're wrong. Democrats have denounced the current administration, but that can be attributed to partisanship. The news media's negative coverage can be written off to liberal bias. But when the Republican convention and national candidates distance themselves from the sitting President, who are you going to blame that on?

It's the same mistake Gore made in 2000 distancing himself from Bill Clinton. A lot of people do not make decisions based on an objective facts; rather they see how other people act and react. And this distancing is very damning.

Picking the nominees

I pretty much agree with Jon Carroll's Who Am I Kidding column: I'll be voting for whomever the Democratic nominee is. Clinton, Obama, Edwards - all fine by me.

We here in Washington State don't get much choice in these matters. There is a primary but it doesn't count (for the Democrats anyway). Candidates are chosen in caucuses of party activists. We went to one when we first moved here in the late 1980s. You have to sit there for over an hour trying to convince other people that your candidate is right. Finally they take a vote and then some of the people at the caucus have to agree to go to some sort of regional meeting and cast their vote. I volunteered for that and went to the regional thing, and it turned out our candidate didn't for some reason qualify to get any support at all. In any case, it's all too late to matter anyway, as the candidates are decided early.

It would be nice to have some choice in the matter, but oh well.

The real trick

If Bush and Cheney were really clever, they'd make a joint apology for the war in Iraq, order an immediate and complete troop withdrawal, and then both resign.

This would leave the presidency to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Whatever happens in the Middle East in the next two years could be blamed on her. Then she'd either run for re-election herself (she's not considered a strong candidate for the office) or there would a bruising primary battle. In any case, the Republicans would have much better chances in 2008 than they look to have now.

Jerry Ford R.I.P

Once again, Bush the Lesser gives the taxpayer a thumb in the eye by giving federal employees a day off to honor the death of an ex-President. Gerald Ford was 93 and out of office for 30 years. He was a government employee, not a King. Whatever happened to the old days when Republicans stood for smaller government, spending tax money carefully and staying out of foreign wars?

Ford sank his own career by pardoning Nixon, on the grounds that it was the best thing for the country. I think he was right and you've got to respect his patriotism.

During his time in office the man was pictured as clumsy. It was really Chevy Chase's parody of him that we remember. Ford himself was probably the best athlete to hold the office: he was a starting lineman on a Big 10 football team. Try having people follow you around all day every day with video cameras and putting every slip and stumble on the evening news.

But the media presents what sells, which may or may not be a fair picture of the truth. In the last Presidential election, John Kerry, a decorated veteran of the war in Viet Nam, was savaged by the Swift Boat Veterans group, while George W. Bush, whose powerful family kept him out of combat, slipped by on his ROTC service. The sad truth is, the truth doesn't matter so much as what you can spin it for.